An overhead cableway of this type is already known from Swiss Letters Patent CH-PS 671552. In this case a travel or transfer rail extends along the transfer segment, on which the transport devices, which have been uncoupled from the transport cable, move until their support, guidance and drive is again provided by the transport cable following the completed recoupling process.
High contact pressure force is required in order to assuredly provide the frictional engagement between the friction wheels and the friction surfaces provided on the friction plates in the deceleration and acceleration section even under unfavorable frictional conditions caused by weather conditions or with maximum load or mass of the transport devices. The contact pressure forces require a size of the transfer rail and its suspension as well as of the friction wheels and their seating which is sufficiently large to assure stability. It is of even greater importance for the installation that the multitude of the transport devices moving within it must be designed to take up the contact pressure forces acting on the friction plates or to transfer corresponding reaction forces between themselves and the transfer rail. It is a fact that a sufficiently strong design of all parts has an effect not only in regard to the costs of the installation and in particular of the transport devices themselves, but also in regard to the operating costs, since the empty weight usually is unfavorable, even with the customary lightweight construction.